Hi,I am just getting into competive tf2 as a medic. As I've been pubbing I've always had a dilemma at midfights on most maps. I seem to always end up healing from a corner and getting jumped on which 1/2 times ends up with me dying.

I would love some advice on positioning in midfights as medic with some examples in particular badlands and granary. Thanks.

hatchet

Asking about good positioning is very general, dependent on where the enemy is, where your allies are, what rollout strategy you have etc etc etc. I have never tried to break it down into general rules so here is a rough attempt at some guidelines.

- Don't turn your back on the enemy, and learn to walk backwards. You cant dodge what you cant see. The only exception is when you must have maximum speed to escape and there will be no time for a slower dodge factored path.

- Do not compromise your own position to possibly save the life of an ally. The exception is if you are intending to uber.

- the path to safety is as often away from the enemy as it is towards allies (these are not the same). Be smart about how you try and evade threats without panic.

- Against soldiers, especially possible bombers, stay out of chokes and away from walls. Also stay at least a splash damage distance away from people your healing (near to max beam length). This should apply most of the time when most players are alive.

- Conversely against scouts running close to and through ally hit boxes is your safest place.

- Against specifically demomen don't dodge backwards as this is typically where stickies will land. This should rarely come up.

- If there's ever a chance someone could be behind you, get into the habit of routinely checking. A quick flick every ~10 seconds will suffice Good medics have reliable 360 degree awareness.

- whenever the enemy medic dies, assume that you will be rushed by some number of bombers or scouts seeking to equalize. Do everything you can to prepare for this and live through it, and your team will be far ahead.

hatchet

assuming: normal left side rollout with primary and demoman on health pack, scouts have both flanks covered, 2ndary is doing something pro-active.

As your primary soldier is going to go n the crate above you, he is not your main heal target for the majority of the rollout, it is your demoman. However the primary is still by and large the person who you will depend on to save you if things go pear shaped.

So long as the demoman is not forward past the crates onto the point, you want to be full heal beam away from him in the corner where no one can get to you. You primary concern is dying to bombing soldiers and don't be afraid to break the beam and escape back through the entrance if that means living should on land on you.

If a scout rushes around the deep left and gets onto you early in the mid fight, yell for assistance as your team clearly has a blind spot in its coverage. In the future as one of your scouts to keep that area secure, either from high or low left himself.

If it is called that both soldiers are coming from garage (ie left as your facing) I am personally a fan of quickly swapping past your demoman to the right side and making your own garage your new escape path if needed. stay away from the health pack corner and the tight chokes around the crates, this is a death trap.

Assuming a close but winning rollout, eventually your demoman is going to want to push forward across the point. It is expected that your soldiers in some capacity will also be moving across, possibly taking your enemies crates. From here on the nature of where is safe to stand radically changes and you should make an effort to get to the very centre on the capture point and generally stay there. It is your best bet against both bombing soldiers and late flanking scouts who are really only trying to kill you as the rest of their team is either dropping or dead.

In general i think that a badlands rollout requires much more concentration as a medic as the 'safe' spots to stand arn't really that safe, and the unsafe spots are less obvious but just as lethal.

As you enter mid through the doorway you will encounter the first death trap - that said door. The primary soldier may have to wait 1 moment to clear a sticky or 2, but you cant afford to waste so much time getting out that he can just apply more.

Never spend time around the entrance, or the wall to its immediately left. Assuming you want to go through said door, mostly you will want to quickly take a left and use the back of the crate and top of the stairs as your protection. Hugging the right of the very back of the crate is also fine - stay off the right wall. Your biggest challenge here will be bombing soldiers and pipe spam - so get good at dodging while ready to retreat down the left of the stairs.

Alternatively if you go to / or find yourself in the valley, it is actually quite safe down there and use the terrain and pillar to your advantage.

Ive seen medics get up onto the top of the crates before, which seems like fine practice if you know bombing soldiers wont come from valley, and want some minor scout safety - though getting up there can be a bit risky. I personally have never bothered about that though.

As with the granary case, once your team is winning the rollout, your primary concern changes to flanking scouts to kill you and a late bomber, and the safest places are the centre of the point (or to the front right of it even), maybe the crates. You must have 360 degree vision here, a scout coming up from your valley or maintenance is super common.

hatchet

A piece of advice about playing medic on mid (from helping newer medics transition from icebreaker).

As a medic on mid, understand & accept it's likely players will go out of their way to jump/focus you and as a result you will sometimes die. Don't take it personally or let it get you down. Understand that if they jump you off the bat, that's ammo/time/damage that they're not devoting to your dps dealing classes. After the game you can look at the replays and see what you/your team could've done better.

That's not to say you're going to make it easy for them by standing still or walking in to spam. But the key thing (and this happens often to newer players especially but also experienced players) is don't over-compensate for your deaths on mid by becoming ultra passive.

Example on badlands: Medic won't leave the house.
Example on granary: On a left roll-out the medic will continue to stay very deep back left,, regardless of what their team is doing.
Example in general play: At the first sign of taking damage from a scout/solly the medic will try to run away solo, usually in a direction where your team can't help kill the attacker. It's an instinctive reaction from playing pub/pugs where you often can't rely on anyone else helping you.

In these situations the medic is doing what they believe is safest to them, because they want to stay alive. But on the flipside if you're alive and not healing then you're not really being effective either. If you have the hp, back your team to protect you and get out there.

hatchet

Tell players to take a med kit if they need heals but you are healing someone else

Try best to avoid damage - but on the same note dont be afraid to put yourself into risky situations to get that little bit more healing off onto a player pushing an advantage - can make the difference between a win/loss (if you die but win mid by a huge margin then wooooooooohooooooooo)

Be aware

Be in a position where you can get off the most healing whilst trying to take as little damage as possible

Communicate with your team

This applies to every map/situation

Last edited by yuki; 23-06-2012 at 05:47.

________________________"We painted the picture you want- I wanted it too".